Moving On Out *Weekend Open Thread*

At long last, the time has come for us to be moving on from our beautiful log home on a tidal creek down on a barrier island. We are going to miss this place. It was our dream home, and we have been in the house for almost 11 years. It is the longest we have lived (together) anywhere.

We have made some good friends here, enjoyed watching the marsh and tidal creek on a daily basis as it is every changing, watching the wildlife come through the yard, and smelling the ocean on the breezes. It has been a great run, and it is bittersweet to be leaving our home. But we know the new owners love the house as much as we do, and that they are excited about their next chapter unfolding in the Lowcountry (they live in the Midwest). We are passing the baton on to them, and wish them many years of happiness here.

But now, we have a new dream. We will be moving to a beautiful Craftsman-style home on a deep water creek off of the Intracoastal Waterway much closer to Charleston, SC, continued to be voted one of the top cities in the World. It deserves it, too. We are excited about our new home. Here is the front of the new place. It already has most of the landscaping installed. We have a few more plants to put in (adorable Pixie Loropetalums), but this is pretty much it:

And this is what it looks like coming back from the dock:

As you can see, we already have DJ’s fence in. We are sure he will enjoy barking at the golfers when they zip by on their carts. Ahem. Hopefully, he’ll get over that in a timely fashion (not holding my breath). The only thing we have left to do is screen in the back porch for both us in terms of the mosquitoes, and to keep the cats in. They LOVE being out on our breezeway, so getting that screened in is Job #1.

Oh – and our new boat just came in to the dealer’s from the manufacturer. The dealer is getting it ready for us (safety equipment, things like that), but it is here. And this is it:

Oh, just can’t wait to try this baby out on the water. Woohoo!

Anyway, needless to say, I am going to be just a tad busy for the next few weeks. I will be checking in as much as I can (assuming Xfinity gets our internet up in a timely fashion) in the intervening time, but there will be much unpacking to do. I am a bit OCD – or as Suzy said, “OUBD: Obsessive Unpacking Box Disorder” – and have to get things out of their boxes and into their respective places in a timely fashion. Just how I am. And not for nothing, once again, Suzy will be gone the week after we move (you’d ALMOST think she plans it. She swears that is not the case. Sure. Yeah. Okay. 🙂 ), so I’ll be a bit busy.

While I am busy unpacking, y’all are always welcome to hang out here. Hopefully, our dear KenoshaMarge will be by the Spirit to share some of her wit and wisdom with us. That is ALWAYS a bonus.

Until then, this will be me, especially as I open up the boxes we have in storage:

And I am hoping that this is not how the movers we hired (coming n Wednesday) are:

Then again, they’d have everything “packed” in no time, right? Ahahaha…

I hope you all have a good weekend, and a good coupe of weeks. I figure by the time I get back to writing, maybe, just MAYBE, the Republicans will actually have crafted something worthwhile to first repeal Obamacare, then start the work of replacing it. And maybe, just maybe, the people who are breaking the law by releasing confidential information or disseminating information they shouldn’t be, will be getting cuffs slapped on them. And that we have a good replacement for justice Scalia with Judge Gorsuch taking his place on the highest bench in the land. Hey, a girl can dream, right?

I am sure there will be more things coming down the pike in the next few weeks. I reckon time will tell.

In the meantime, what’s on your minds? This is the Weekend Open Thread.

46 Responses to “Moving On Out *Weekend Open Thread*”

What a beautiful new house and environment you are going to live in. I know you regret leaving your “dream” house but I suspect that won’t last long once you get into your new “dream”.

I am of the “can’t get the boxes emptied fast enough” disorder too. Lou says he hopes we never move again just because he’s sure watching me scurry around emptying boxes that could wait a day or two is very tiring.

I think he mean tiresome because I prod him to help or he feels guilty watching me do it.Whatever works. He never went so far as to slip out of town but I’ll bet he thought about it.

Whatever, just take it easy on yourself and tell your disorder to keep it’s shirt on you’ll do what you can when you can.

Looking at both houses and both locations, you couldn’t lose. But being closer to things is better.

Some jokes for today to make me smile because it’s gloomy and rainy and depressing outside and I hurt my back.

For my birthday I got a humidifier and a de-humidifier…I put them in the same room and let them fight it out…

So then I filled the humidifier with wax and left it on. Now everything in my house is shiny.

Yesterday I parked my car in a tow-away zone…when I came back the entire area was missing…

For a while I didn’t have a car…I had a helicopter…no place to park it, so I just tied it to a lamp post and left it running… [slow glance upward]

This is my impression of a bowling ball…[drags the mike along the floor, then lifts it]…gutter…

There’s a pizza place near where I live that sells only slices… in the back you can see a guy tossing a triangle in the air…

I had to stop driving my car for a while…the tires got dizzy…

I recently moved into a new apartment, and there was this switch on the wall that didn’t do anything…so anytime I had nothing to do, I’d just flick that switch up and down…up and down…up and down….Then one day I got a letter from a woman in Germany…it just said, “Cut it out.”

I put instant coffee in my microwave oven and almost went back in time.

I spilled spot remover on my dog and now he’s gone.

“The Stones, I love the Stones. I watch them whenever I can. Fred, Barney..”

“My friend Winnie is a procrastinator. He didn’t get his birthmark til he was eight years old.”

So do I. It happened because I thought there was one more step down to the basement floor. We’ve all done it and bam it feels like you stepped off a mountain. And it hurts. When I was young(er) it would bother me for maybe a day. This is going on 3 days now and I’m getting miffed. I went ahead and did my treadmill walk yesterday and that was painful. So far today I’m thinking about it. I figure if I can at least walk every other day until it’s better I won’t lose too much.

Lou is sympathetic since he’s just getting over a problem of his own. Because of that I hesitate to ask him to do much to help me. Just two old crocks in a pod.

Oh and I forgot to mention that I loved the cartoons. Good work Grasshopper!

Oh, my – that does not sound good at all. I know that had to hurt. And yes, taking it easy while you are recovering is a good idea. My PT is making it clear that they no longer believe in the, “No pain, no gain” mantra.

I am sure Lou IS sympathetic! Nice of you to not want to push him too much right now, but if he is able and willing now, better him do it than you hurting yourself. Which I know you know, just sayin’. 🙂

And now it’s official. The ACHA is out. Looking at a dire whip count, President Trump and Speaker Ryan decided to yank the bill from the floor, rather than forcing members to take difficult votes for no reason. The game of chicken ended with a dramatic threat, then a climb-down. A debacle.

So what, if anything, comes next on Obamacare ‘repeal and replace’? Nobody knows, but the president tells the Washington Post he isn’t especially interested in revisiting the issue any time soon.

Benson is so right. I just do not understand why they didn’t either have something that members had come together to agree upon after real deliberation, or, as Jim Jordan keeps saying, the same one they sent up to Obama before. It doesn’t make sense that they came up with something willy nilly, the White House getting help from the OBAMACARE architect, Emanuel (Rahm’s brother), and more. I just don’t know what the hell they were thinking…

Montgomery County School Superintendent Dr. Jack Smith, under fire for his delayed response to the alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl at Rockville High School last week, rakes in a taxpayer funded salary of $275,000, months of paid time off and a whole goody bag full of other pricey benefits.

According to Smith’s contract, he receives the following:

-$275,000 salary per year, with a review each year for an increase and pay cannot be reduced

-$40,000 per year paid by the board for his retirement fund

-25 days of annual paid leave which can be rolled over and cashed out

-20 days of sick and/or personal leave per year, which can also be cashed out

-Disability insurance up to $8000 paid by the board

-All school holidays off

-A vehicle for personal and professional use with all “expenses for gasoline, insurance, maintenance, and repairs, in connection with the use of said vehicle” paid for by the school board.

Further, Smith was paid as much as $12,000 to relocate to Montgomery County. He abruptly resigned from a previous position as superintendent of Calvert County Public Schools in 2014 when questions about his inflated paycheck and secret contracts were raised by new board members.

Earlier this week, Smith accused parents upset about illegal alien men being allowed into Maryland schools of racism. The 17 and 18 year old suspects charged with the alleged rape, which took place in the boys restroom of Rockville High School last week, are in the United States illegally from Guatemala and El Salvador. At least one has a deportation detainer from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

And not for nothing, but why does it make someone racist to want the LAW followed? Seriously – how is that RACIST? And if we don’t need to follow Immigration law, what other laws does Montgomery County Supervisor think we no longer need to follow?

I just do not understand how we have gotten tot his whole “Open Borders” mentality in this nation. Craziness!

What I don’t get is why the Reps always seem to let the Dems call the shots. They have been given a Supermajority for a reason – people didn’t like what the Dems were doing. And still, they squander it, putting forth an Obamacare Lite plan instead of doing what we have been telling them to do for the past 7 yrs. It makes NO sense.

The voters, even those that didn’t vote for Trump but did vote down ticket voted to get illegals under control, as in follow the law, repeal and replace Obamacare and get a conservative on the Supreme Court.

So just do what was promised. If not the same reluctant voters for Trump will turn on him and the Dems will be back in the saddle.

The one thing, aside from Gorsuch, Sessions and Pruitt that he’s done that I do like is take the fight right back to the media.
They can accuse him, and rightly so, of fake news but they’ve been doing it for years. The damn hypocrisy is repulsive.

My Representative, Mark Sanford, had a great piece on the whole AHCA thing, beginning with it would NOT have repealed Obamacare. Um, is that not the primary point we have made with Reps time and time and time again? Good heavens – they really do know how to snack defeat from victory.

Yes, you are exactly right. All of these people got in on that promise and a watered down version that doesn’t accomplish much or that leaves too much to unilateral chance down the road is just not going to do.

I don’t know if you saw the movie, “Heaven Is For Real,” but near the end, the father, who was a minister, is looking up pictures of Jesus on his computer, and would ask his son, the one who went to Heaven (he had died while at the hospital) if that was what Jesus looked like. Every time, the son said no, until he walked past and saw the painting this girl had painted. He said, “that’s him,” and kept walking.

What a remarkable child! Imagine what she will become if she is this talented at this tender age?

Perhaps because she doesn’t “know” yet that she can’t see the things she sees or talk about them. Because that might “offend” someone that doesn’t see them or know them. I say bless her but God already has.

We live in a world that would tamp us all down so that the special and the inspirational become like us instead of like they were meant to be. I pray that doesn’t happen to Akeanna.
The world would lose so much if it does.

But I suspect God’s hand is on her and won’t allow that to happen. I believe he sends the Akeannas of the world to give us all hope.

And imagine my surprise to find a piece about spirituality and God on CNN. Maybe there is hope in this world.

Isiah 11:6

“The wolf will live with the lamb; the leopard will lie down with the young goat. The calf and the lion will graze together, and a little child will lead them.

“Gender refers to a person’s social identity while sex refers to biological characteristics,” explains the Stylebook.

“Not all people fall under one of two categories for sex or gender, according to leading medical organizations, so avoid references to both, either or opposite sexes or genders as a way to encompass all people,” the guidelines say. “When needed for clarity or in certain stories about scientific studies, alternatives include men and women, boys and girls, males and females.”

Can you imagine sometime in the future when our descendants look back on this time in history and wonder what the hell we were all drinking? Perhaps they will think it caused by the legalization of marijuana. Who knows what they will think except we were nuts.

That IS insane. I am so, so sick of this. On the front page of our local newspaper today is a story abt a transgendered girl and how hard it is for her. How in the HELL does this child even know abt all of this, and accurately assess something at this age when the child is STILL developing??

Not that there aren’t a (very small) minority of people who do believe they are in the wrong bodies, but it just seems like this is really being pushed in a big way. It just makes me wonder what the end game is.

One thing I do know is that all of this is taking away from girls. You have transwomen winning in sports events now – NATURALLY. I mean, that is just a given that a man in the same weight class is going to out lift or our run a girl. Same with the whole bathroom thing. The ones paying the price are women/girls. And all this from the people who claim to be ALL abt women.

You make the same point that confuses me – if these people are all about women how can they be for “men” competing with women in sporting events? Women simply cannot compete physically – it isn’t bias, it’s biology.

This is why I am not gung-ho about women in combat in the military. Nothing against women’s courage but all about biology. If they want to risk their lives that’s fine – but if they cannot do all that’s needed physically they endanger those they serve with.

And a “woman” with a penis is a man. End of discussion IMO. Chop it off and the DNA still says man. Again it isn’t bias – it’s biology!

Exactly, Marge – it makes no sense to me whatsoever. And as I have stated before, it absolutely INFURIATES me that they use Title IX to justify letting boys/men use the women’s room or go into girls’ locker rooms. How int he WORLD can any parent be okay with that??

Sheesh.

As for women in combat, if women cannot pass the same regulations that men do, especially in the elite units, then maybe they don’t belong there. Every person serving in harm’s way must be able to accomplish the same feats as the person next to them. People’s very lives depend upon it…

Bannon: “Guys, look. This is not a discussion. This is not a debate. You have no choice but to vote for this bill.”

Now, that may work in the conference room of one of Trump’s companies, but it sure doesn’t work with members of Congress. It’s an amateur move to order lawmakers to vote for a bill that could lose them their seats. And they didn’t take kindly to the play.

One member at the meeting reportedly replied: “You know, the last time someone ordered me to [do] something, I was 18 years old. And it was my daddy. And I didn’t listen to him, either.”

It is staggering, isn’t it? And proof positive of the ideology now espoused by Dems – facts have no place in their decision making, just how they FEEL. Wow. And as you noted, for someone with her LEGAL creds to say this is horrifying…